Shell Suspends Arctic Drilling, Begich Responds.
This morning Shell announced that it will not drill offshore in the Alaskan Arctic this year. The announcement comes after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal agency in charge of issuing permits for offshore drilling in the U.S. intentionally downplayed the risks and impacts associated with drilling in the remote and vulnerable Chukchi Sea ecosystem off the northern coast of Alaska. The court ruled that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) failed to conduct adequate impact assessments before issuing permission to drill. According to the findings of the court, the BOEM “based its decision on inadequate…
Shell Drill Ship Runs Aground (updated)
Remember last week when Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said, “I don’t believe there will be an oil spill?” He was talking about Shell’s offshore arctic drilling in the Beaufort and Chuckchi Seas. I wonder if anyone asked Ken Salazar if he “believed” that Shell wouldn’t even be able to get the drill rig to the drilling site without running it aground? Because, guess what? It did. Well, they didn’t say it “ran aground.” The official story from Shell’s spokesman Curtis Smith (who may or may not be Sarah Palin’s former spokesman Curtis Smith) was: “Today, while moored off the…